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She snorted and wagged her eyebrows at me again, “Told you he wanted to make pretty little babies with you.”
I looked at the clock again and mentally counted the minutes until my shift was over.
“Mama!” Penelope screamed as I walked in the back door of our rental house a few hours later.
“Oof.” I grunted and caught her midair off the chair she’d been standing on at the counter.
My four-year-old was almost as tall as I was, and it was getting harder to carry her every day. “I missed you, Mama.” She said and clung to my neck.
“I missed you too, June Bug.” I said and kissed her head before setting her back down on the chair at the counter. She had more nicknames than I had room in my memory for, but somehow I added to the list regularly. Penelope June was her full name, but she was called an array of Penny, Juney, PJ, June Bug, or my baby sister’s favorite, PB&J. “What are you doing?”
“We’re making you cookies to take to work tonight.” She said proudly.
My sister, Madeline, walked back into the room with a bag of chocolate chips in her hands and a bright smile on her face. “Hey, Sis.”
“Hi.” I nodded to the bowl of batter on the counter, “My favorite. What did I do to earn those?”
She shrugged her shoulders, “Just thought you could use the pick me up between jobs.”
“I appreciate it.” I gave her a grin. “I’m going to go shower off the hospital.”
“I just finished a load of laundry, so I don’t know how much hot water you’ll have.” She grimaced and I shrugged my shoulders.
“I don’t even hate the cold showers anymore to be honest.” I smirked and kissed PJ on the head again before heading for the stairs. “I’ll make dinner when I get out.”
“Good! Because I was drawing blanks on a menu for the night.” Maddie joked. She was never good at cooking. Baking yes, cooking no.
Dragging my aching body up the creaky stairs, I went to my small bedroom and fought the urge to just strip down and crawl under the covers and forgo a shower all together.
And I probably would have if I didn’t have to be at Cherry’s in a few hours.
Which meant I only had a few hours with my baby girl before she went to bed, and I was determined to make the most of it.
Even if I didn’t have an ounce of energy left inside of me.
I’d fake it for her.
Just like I had for the last four years.
Because that was my role as a single mom.
I made dinner and played three games of Candyland with PJ and Maddie before bedtime at eight. And by eight thirty I was walking into Cherry’s for my Saturday night bartending shift. I made good money as a nurse in the ER, especially with overtime basically always available.
But two weekend night shifts at Cherry’s gave me almost the same amount of money in tips alone. So I forced my tired body to put on the revealing clothes that helped my endeavor and poured beer for another six to eight hours after a grueling ER shift.
Even if it sucked my soul from my body to deal with the rough crowd that fancied the rowdy bar on the weekends.
“Hey, babe.” Lora, my partner bartender called as I threw my bag behind the bar. “Busy place already.”
“Yay.” I droned on and she winked, popping open a Redbull and handing it to me before tossing one in upside down into a fishbowl drink she was making. “Thanks.”
“Anytime.” She winked and turned to give her drink to the server waiting.
I clocked in and pounded the energy drink and then restocked my station and got to work.
The music was loud.
The smoke was thick.
